Page 11 of Notorious

He glanced down. Visel was scooting sideways like a crab fleeing an incoming wave, the slick heels of his dancing shoes skittering as he tried to gain a foothold on the smooth floor. The man was having entirely too much difficulty controlling his person, and Gabriel realized he was drunk—very drunk.

“Dammit!”Visel swore, pushing back against the glass and scrambling awkwardly to his feet, his breathing an audible soughing in the near silence of the conservatory. His heavy-lidded eyes slid from Gabriel to Miss Clare, his brows pulling together over his nose until they resembled a solid blond hedge. He opened his mouth, but another voice interrupted whatever he was going to say.

“Dru? Gabe?” Eva was pushing through the bodies blocking the doorway as if they were a bothersome thicket of weeds. “What is going on?” She sped toward them in her heedless, headlong way, her blue-violet eyes round with shock as she stared at the swaying form of the earl. “What have you done?”

Visel’s too-pretty face screwed into an ugly sneer. “Well, if it isn’t Mad Mary herself—come to rescue the barbarian bastard and the shopgirl, have you?” He laughed. “I think you’re too late for that, sweetheart.”

Gabriel’s body moved toward the other man before his brain knew what he was doing. But this time Visel was expecting him and met him head-on.

“You are drunk,” Gabriel grated between clenched jaws as they grappled with each other, well matched in size and strength if not in sobriety.

Visel’s choked laughter filled the conservatory. “I might be, but I’d say the same things sober, Marlington. What are you going to do about it?”

Before Gabriel could answer, Visel twisted one arm out of his grasp and swung wildly. His fist clipped Gabriel’s jaw hard enough to send a cascade of stars across his vision, and he lost his grip on Visel’s other arm. He lunged toward him just as several hands landed on his shoulders.

Gabriel ignored the frantic voices behind him and the violent handling, his eyes locked with Visel’s. The earl straightened up and pushed his sweat-damp blond hair from his forehead, his eyes narrowed to slits.

At least four sets of arms tightened around Gabriel’s arms and shoulders and held him steady.

Visel walked up to him, close enough that the hot, sweet stench of alcohol made Gabriel flinch. Close enough that he could see the almost mad glint in the other man’s eyes. “You assaulted me, Marlington; I demand that you meet me for this.”

“No!” Eva and Lady Drusilla yelled in tandem.

The men ignored them.

“Let him go,”Visel snapped at Gabriel’s captors.

The hands fell away, and Gabriel heard the shuffle of feet as they quickly moved out of range.

Gabriel took a card from his coat pocket. “Here is my direction. Viscount Byer and I share the house. He will receive your man.” He flicked the small rectangle at the earl, and Visel flapped clumsily to catch it.

He stared across at Gabriel with a hatred that should have left him scorched to a cinder, a fanatical expression of glee on his face. “Finally,” he said, and then shouldered past Gabriel and strode toward the exit.

Finally? What the devil did finally mean?

“Noooooo!” Eva’s anguished cry snapped Gabriel out of his daze. Luckily, Drusilla had her arms wrapped around the much smaller woman or she would have attacked Lord Visel.

Visel cut Eva an unpleasant smile but didn’t pause. The crowd parted to let him through and then dispersed more quickly than rats exposed to daylight. No doubt they were sprinting back to the crowded ballroom to spread the word. Gabriel needed to get his sister and Miss Clare out of here.

“Where the devil is your aunt?” he asked Miss Clare.

Eva answered. “I just spoke to Mrs. Peel,” she said, her eyes wide, shocked—frightened. “She is quite ill, but I think she—”

“She is very ill.” Miss Clare’s cool, quiet voice cut through his sister’s words like a blade. “She takes a potion to fight most of the pain, but it can become quite bad at times.”

Gabriel threw up his hands. “Then why is she here, at a ball, engaged in such frippery? If my mother had known, she would have engaged somebody for you both.”

Miss Clare pursed her lips. “She is here because it is her wish, Mr. Marlington. We are all the family we both have, and she does not want me to be alone.” She swallowed hard. “Although now I can see I might have made a terrible mistake giving in to her.” This last part was spoken more to herself. She looked up. “I thought Eva and I were perfectly able to care for ourselves.”

Gabriel snorted, even though he knew recriminations were not helpful. “Yet here you were. Alone. And you, Eva? Why were you not here with Miss Clare? You left me almost a quarter of an hour ago.” He flicked Eva a scalding glance.

“I’m sorry, Gabe. It’s not Dru’s fault.” Eva reached out and took his arm, and it was all he could do not to snatch it away. “I’d just left Mrs. Peel, who wanted me to fetch a—”

“We don’t have time right now. Word of this will reach your father’s ears before we set foot in the door.” He glanced at Miss Clare. “I’ll take you back to your house on the way.”

“She’s staying with me tonight, Gabriel—at Exley House.”

Gabriel squeezed his eyes shut and muttered every vile curse he knew. She was under the marquess’s roof? That meant she was his lordship’s responsibility—or Gabriel’s, by extension. His stepfather and mother would strip the hide off his back, and they had every right to do so.